Instagram app appears for Windows Phone, but you can’t have it (because it’s not real)

April fools. We’re writing this story for one reason: to get all of our awesome loyal fans to stop tipping us on Instagram becoming available for Windows Phone. News flash: it’s not.

The app in question went live in the Store on March 31st in beta form and cannot be downloaded by the public. In the app description, all of the features of the hipster photo app are given along with mentions of Windows Phone 8 support and a “Modern User Interface by Sarper Erel”, who happened to have made an Instagram “concept” for Windows Phone 7 back one year ago in 2012.

That's just where some of the weirdness begins...

There’s also of course the last bullet point in the app description that a few have glossed over: “And Happy April 1st 2013!.". Ahem.

Let us just clear a few things up: if Instagram was about to come out, we’d surely know about it. Trust us. This is not it, even though the company name, Burbn Inc. is the right one for Instagram.

So how did this happen? Simple, anyone with a developer account can make a private beta on the Windows Phone Store and have the app say whatever they want to say.Throw in some screenshots designed by someone else as a "project" from one year ago and hey-ho, you have a fake listing that looks almost real. Almost.

Let’s look at a few other oddities here, just to be safe:

It’s April first

The app description makes mention of April 1st

The app was published on March 31st

It’s conveniently a private beta, meaning no one can test it

The app design is based off of a 2012 concept that was a made “in a day”

IT IS APRIL FIRST

Do we need to go on? Sorry folks, no Instagram. at least not today. Indeed, we have a feeling we’ll be fighting off quite a few rumors and “news” today, so just have fun and take it all with a grain of salt.

When Facebook bought Instagram the Instragram owners became overnight millionaires. It would surely need more inspiration than money to make them work again esp to create apps for upcoming platform. Maybe one day they might do that for the eager people on WP.

Who hell wants Facebook phone? I don't. It's just a joke so zukerberg can make more money. Also instagram is so gay. What's more popular is text messenger like wechat or line is more fun. Who wants post photos boring....

It may nit be that we want the app, but that we want more users on our platform and we want to beat Google and Apple, so to do that we need Instagram so those other users will want to switch to Windows Phone. That's why we want it.

didn't believe it for one second, although oddly enough instagram was released for android on april 3, 2012...wldn't it be cruel -for those craving instagram for WP- if the actual instagram developers are the one's behind this? However, I think that an IG app has has been ready for release for at least a few months but they are taking the "business approach", if you will. I mean, it doesn't/shouldn't take THAT long to code an app for WP if you're a professional.

-_-" THIS IS SO RETARDED! I got my hopes up for this app, but then of course it had to be a fake one because some douchebag developer thought it be funny! But its not! I got this phone and was going to return it for not having instagram! All my friends are on and I enjoy it. But I didn't, I thought you know what give it a chance! (Yolo) I'm a little pissed because instead of making fake apps. How about developers stop trolling us, do their job and start making fun useful apps?

I can't believe people here are rationalizing that this is a real app so much that they are starting to believe themselves. It's in private beta which means no cert, no official testing, doesn't have to adhere to guidelines and not searchable. It's just a link. Btw, yes the pub is Burbn lnc and you do have to choose a name when you register but remember...upper case I's look exactly like lower case L's in the Segue UI font. Hell my previous sentence I used a lower case L when I just wrote lnc (and again right there). It's a fake, case closed.

Ah yes, but if you do tap on the publisher name, and look at the title which is in all caps, it will say BURBN INC instead of BURBN LNC, and publisher names aren't interchangeable, corporate or individual it applies to both. So if this guys a real fake then the current Burbn Inc. would be revoked as instagram claims both copyright to app name and publisher name, so either that happens or this is the real deal

There seems to be a lot of humourless individuals commenting this article. Relax, its just one app and a pretty funny first April joke. Its always funny to joke with humourless people and when some maniac says he wanna punch people, its a bullseye. Well played by MS and burbn inc. I also used this on my Swedish nokiablog. http://nyttomnokia.com

If this isn't a prelude to the real deal, if I were the dev I'd be wary of walking into a crowded room full of WP users and announcing my name. Yes, some of us take life too serious but if that is your only defense, tell that to the nurse that's stitching up your eye after colliding with a beer bottle, or Lumia 920. And no, that wouldn't be me on the other end. Never seen Instagram, probably never will. Just sayin', in today's volatile climate of second amendment rights debate - right or wrong - be careful of the words you say, keep them soft and sweet. You'll never know from day to day the ones you'll have to eat. In other words, pick your April fools jokes wisely. Perhaps this op-ed is a bit over the top, come to think of it.

Weird. The app was updated to 4.1.20.13 Beta and the List changed and the app date is now 1/04/2013 According to peacefulberry's link

100% free custom designed filters and borders
☆ Lux works its magic by making your photos more vibrant and brings out details in your photos you couldn't see before
☆ Linear and Radial Tilt-Shift blur effects for extra depth of field.
☆ Instant sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and Foursquare
☆ Interact with friends through giving & receiving likes and comments
☆ Works with Windows Phone 8
☆ Tightly integrated with Lens, Photo Hub, and the popular Windows Phone photo apps

I think there is a reality to this joke. The publisher is original Instagram publisher and also the logo looks professionally done to my eyes. Also if you search for the name "Instagram" on store, you will find no apps exactly named as Instagram. So I guess it is restricted to give the name "Instagram" to an app unless you are the original publisher or Microsoft (can anybody confirm this?).
In short this joke increased my hopes. We might see Instagram on WP in a few weeks!

FYI
1. Publisher names are unique and cannot co-exist with an existing one. Picking a publisher name is done before Microsoft sets up your dev account.
"Publisher Name is the name users will see on their phone. Publisher names are unique and will be verified during the registration and Microsoft account validation processes."
"If you receive a publisher name conflict error message, the error indicates that the globally unique publisher name you provided is already in use on Dev Center. Your options are either to provide a new publisher name or to dispute the use by someone else if you have rights to the publisher name."
2. Just because the date says 31/03/2013 doesn't mean that the app was done overnight. This date indicates when was the app submitted to the Store.
3. The app is still in Store.
4. They used the concept images as a placeholder because it's a private beta app, and because it fits in nicely with WP interface, so they obviously paid Sarper Erel and credited him nicely in the info box.

One suspicion was the use of a different instagram logo,but if you go to the instagram site, and you look at the iPhone version, it'll have that same WP logo on the iPhone's "upload a pic" button, so technically the supposed WP app has an official logo.

Look here, people. The only way we can get our platform attention from Android and Iphone users is to bring this app to the platform. Whether you like it or not, to grow our platform, we need this app. People will switch for this app, trust me.

Taken from Microsoft's Dev center under app certification requirements:.
1.2 Your app must be fully functional when the customer gets it from the Windows Store
The Windows Store offers only fully functional apps to provide customers with the best experience. Anything that might cause our testers to think that your app is not completely finished will cause your app to fail certification.

Definitely a cruel joke. But let's get serious... once we finally do get Instagram, the hype will die over and no one will care anymore. It's a lame excuse for people use who are afraid to jump on board.

I've been emailing Instagram forever, a ton. I know this ones fake, but I hope that this is a sign that it's coming. Sort of like the [adult swim] Toonami April Fools Day that a few months later got a spot on Saturdays on tv.

I think that devs that submit fake apps should be reprimanded (and I praise developers constantly). There are many devs that take app development seriously and use it as a business, and having fake apps just causes a stir and a level of untrustworthiness between developers or the platform and its customers. Microsoft should remove the app.

Is there a chance if this gets out in the news that it could actually help us get Instagram in the long run buy causing a stir and putting even more pressure on the creators of Instagram to develop a app?? Maybe this will work to our advantage, or maybe this joke was a elaborate scheme to help us get Instagram.. IDK, I'm just trying to make light of the situation.

Like seriously developers shouldn't complain about porting apps to other platforms when community funding is readily available. Its the new wave, community is funding all the developers need to do is make the product.

Well it's owned by Facebook, who are supposed to be releasing their own aneroid based phone. It's possible that they don't want to give WP8 any more market share prior to release of that, especially considering they need to fix their mobile offerings.

For the same reason you might want a notification center, subway surfers, or better MS office integration or remote PC control. Everyone wants different things/different needs. Personally I dint care for Instagram, but I want the new MySpace app, reverbnation and a better soundcloud app and better Facebook app for pages support, why because I'm a musician. My friend does graphic work and photo shoots for my album releases and he can't live/work for me without Instagram.

Sad thing is even if the money for development were handed to Instagram, they still wouldn't do it. It's more about the long term extortion of MS. More $$ over the long term. It's effing sleezy but high profile apps will continue to do this until WP is a bigger percentage of the overall market.